Well, the fact that Goldman Sachs is now focusing on a custody solution for institutional investors provides the first hint. It means Goldman isn't comfortable with the current solutions available in the market. And as we've been saying all year, until a secure custody solution (which is basically a way to securely hold large volumes of bitcoin) is built, institutional investors won't enter the market. As far as Goldman is concerned, the current solutions are not good enough. So it's building its own.

Goldman isn't the only firm pursuing a custody solution. Coinbase has its own. So does Ledger. The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange is building one too. Once these solutions get built out to the point that institutional investors are comfortable with them, you'll see the big money start to flow in.

The second aspect of Goldman's decision to delay plans to launch a crypto trading desk is regulatory uncertainty - both in the U.S. and in Europe.

In the U.S., Goldman was looking for some regulatory changes that would help mitigate some of the risk in trading cryptocurrency, according to Business Insider. And in Europe, the EU is mulling over plans to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges and initial coin offerings.

Goldman already processes trades for clients who want to invest in bitcoin futures. And it's pursuing its own custody solution. So it's not out of the bitcoin market. It's just waiting for sufficient infrastructure to be built out before it enters. That makes sense for an institution like Goldman.

By Vin Narayanan, September 6, 2018 First Stage Investor

And I still think they are picking up on the cheap to add to their pile, not unlike JP Morgan and silver. It's what they do.

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" Voltaire

The cryptocurrency bear market plumbed a fresh 10-month low on Monday as Bitcoin’s biggest rival tumbled and U.S. regulators suspended trading in two securities linked to digital assets.

Ether, the second-largest virtual currency, slumped 11 percent from its level at 5 p.m. New York time on Friday, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Bitcoin declined 2.4 percent, while the market capitalization of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com shrank to about $197 billion -- down almost $640 billion from its January peak.

I'm just now catching up on this summer's season of Queen of the South. Early in the season the Queen decided to start using cryptocurrency to store her proceeds. She said Bitcoin and Ethereum have too much movement (I'm guessing referring to volatility) so she went with Pteria.

Before you look, this is a made-up coin, at least as of this writing. Who knows, maybe someone will decide to use the name in the future! Here's a discussion:

A great article that captures this moment in time for the Lightning Network as a layer-two technology. I am eager to see the ease of use for this tech grow. Exciting times!

I dunno. The technical stuff to set up payment is going to keep it from being widely adopted. Not to mention that Bitcoin is still crazy volatile. You're average Joe or Jane Sixpack cannot keep track of a currency whose value fluctuates hourly. It's the same old saw. It's a sharty unit of account.

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A great article that captures this moment in time for the Lightning Network as a layer-two technology. I am eager to see the ease of use for this tech grow. Exciting times!

I dunno. The technical stuff to set up payment is going to keep it from being widely adopted. Not to mention that Bitcoin is still crazy volatile. You're average Joe or Jane Sixpack cannot keep track of a currency whose value fluctuates hourly. It's the same old saw. It's a sharty unit of account.

I agree with you about this for the short-term. We don't know what the long-term outcome may be though. Maybe one day the technical setup for payment on the Lightning Network can be as simple as it is for paypal today. I am being optimistic and hoping that price stability comes when the inflation of the supply is miniscule (8-9 years?) and mass adoption has (more or less) taken place. Will any of this stuff happen? Beats me. But I am willing to speculate with some fiat in case it does. Today that's all it is, speculation.